New Book!

[Paul Trejo]

Proceeding now into Jeffrey Caufield's new book, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy, Chapter 5, Milteer in Dealey Plaza, we will read about the Milteer link to the JFK murder, and its suppression by the HSCA and others.

First, let's see how Caufield can respond to Larry Hancock's concern over the falsehood that the FBI never shared the Milteer story with the Secret Service. Jeff Caufield suggests Secret Service activity about Joseph Milteer eight days before the JFK murder, writing:

The Secret Service noted in a November 14, 1963 report that they were unable to obtain a photograph of Milteer, although they were trying to do so. In the memorandum from the Secret Service it was noted that the Atlanta FBI Agent Harding pledged to request photos from Thomasville Agent Royal McGraw who, he stated, had done the initial investigation on Milteer. This claim was contrary to what Agent Adams told the author. (Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy, 2015, p. 130)

Then, on the date of the JFK murder, the Secret Service was still in the loop regarding Milteer, as Caufield writes:

In spite of Adams's report to Atlanta indicating that Milteer was nowhere to be found [in Atlanta] on the day of the assassination, the Atlanta SAC sent a Teletype to the FBI in Washington, Dallas and Birmingham, dated November 22, 5:43 p.m., stating that they had determined the whereabouts of Milteer -- as well as J.B. Stoner and Melvin Bruce -- and advised the Secret Service of that fact. (Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy, 2015, p. 130)

Jeff Caufield suggests further Secret Service activity about Joseph Milteer a few days after the JFK murder, writing:

The chief of the Atlanta Secret Service, SAIC A.B. Wentz noted the FBI's information in his report on November 27th, 1963. FBI Agent Charles Harding contacted their agent (whose name was redacted) at Thomasville, who immediately ascertained that J.A. Milteer was in Quitman at the time of the assassination. (Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy, 2015, p. 130)

So, I think that this shows some effort to communicate between the FBI and the Secret Service on the topic of Joseph Milteer during the period surrounding the JFK assassination. What do you think, Larry?

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited January 1, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

That's good stuff Paul and I'm happy he did the debunking, more could be written in regard to PRS activities in DC....especially since Milteer had also threatened the Supreme Court in his remarks...but as Bill has noted you have to stop somewhere. This certainly makes the point that the SS was aware of Milteer and was following their normal practices of collecting data on him. Not like the FBI was hiding anything.

[Paul Trejo]

Continuing now into Jeffrey Caufield's new book, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy, Chapter 5, Milteer in Dealey Plaza, because the story of Milteer and Somersett is so well-known, we might move toward the conclusion.

Willie Somersett testified that Joseph Milteer called him on 11/22/1963 at 10:30 am from a Texas pay-phone, and said, "Hey! Well, I'm down here in jack-rabbit country. Well, you won't be seeing your friend Kennedy down there in Miami no more!" And he just hung up. (Caufield, p. 127).

Photography shows clearly that Joseph Milteer was in Dealey Plaza at the moment JFK was killed -- however, the HSCA refused to accept all this testimony and evidence, and so refused to question Joseph Milteer. The question of Milteer never even came up for the Warren Commission. All investigative bodies of the US Government had concluded that that Joseph Milteer was in Quitman, Georgia on the day JFK was killed. Jeff Caufield writes:

The evidence that Milteer was not in his home in Georgia, but rather in Dealey Plaza, during the assassination is substantial. The photographic evidence suggests Milteer could well be the motorcade subject and certainly doesn't exclude him (as claimed by the HSCA analysis). If the man standing next to the Milteer look-alike is Klansman Melvin Sexton, then there is little doubt Milteer is in the photo. (Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy, 2015, p. 135)

Based on the testimony of Willie Somersett (rather than Don Adams alone) and the photographic evidence of Milteer at Dealey Plaza when JFK was killed, this is the conclusion at which Jeff Caufield arrives:

Milteer's dead-on prediction of the bloody events in Dealey Plaza, his own record of violence, and the compelling evidence that he was in Dealey Plaza would defy any explanation other than that he was part of the conspiracy. (Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy, 2015, p. 136)

According to Jeff Caufield, it is too mild to say that the FBI botched the case. Caufield speculates upon the possibility that the FBI lied to FBI Agent Don Adams about the location of Milteer on 11/22/1963, and when they sent Don Adams to interview Milteer on 11/27/1963, this could have been a tip-off to Milteer that the FBI was onto him -- otherwise, speculates Caufield, Milteer might have confessed even more to Willie Somersett.

Looking at the chapter headings and the Index, we see plainly that Joseph Milteer figures heavily throughout Jeff Caufield's new book. It's too bad that FBI Agent Don Adams passed away before the publication of this book -- he would have cheered.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited January 2, 2016 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, does Caufield give any notice that he has been through the Milteer papers now located in a Ga country courthouse? They were collected by the HSCA but never moved out of Georgia... there seems to be some important stuff in there including motel receipts for Nov 22....just curious as if he had reviewed that or talked to the lawyer that controls it?

[Ernie Lazar]

Another new book which might be of interest:

Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy

Edward H. Miller

University of Chicago Press, Sep 3, 2015 - History - 256 pages

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, “We’re heading into nut country today.” That day’s events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.

In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism—and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party’s divisive but effective “Southern Strategy,” the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.

Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller's captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.

[Ernie Lazar]

This may have been the last interview of Walker (click on link at top to go to first page):

https://books.google.com/books?id=jCsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA59&dq=%22edwin+a.+walker%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBsQ6AEwADgUahUKEwj7q7X8zdvIAhXVNIgKHY-HC7c#v=onepage&q=%22edwin%20a.%20walker%22&f=false

Edited October 24, 2015 by Ernie Lazar

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, does Caufield give any notice that he has been through the Milteer papers now located in a Ga country courthouse? They were collected by the HSCA but never moved out of Georgia... there seems to be some important stuff in there including motel receipts for Nov 22....just curious as if he had reviewed that or talked to the lawyer that controls it?

Larry, I suppose you mean the Atlanta County Courthouse records on Joseph Milteer, am I right?

I seem to recall Jeff Caufield on Doug Campbell's podcast (The Dallas Action) two weeks ago, complaining that they would not allow him to XEROX anything about anybody from their veritable treasure trove of data.

I'm not really surprised, because the Mississippi Department of Archives and History has a ton of information about General Walker -- INCLUDING VALUABLE FILM FOOTAGE -- and they refuse to release it.

It seems that the Segregation issue is *still* to this very day, a touchy subject of politics in the Deep South. It's as though the subject still smolders on.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 24, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Actually I don't think the Milteer HSCA collection I'm thinking of was in Fulton country Paul (that's the county Atlanta is in) but rather Milteer's home county seat. Caufield would have needed a lawyer to access the Milteer collection as its still legally bound there, not in any public archive. When the HSCA collected it but failed to take it away it went into a sort of legal limbo. Perhaps Bill will recall something about it.

[Paul Brancato]

It is mighty upsetting that researchers cannot view these possibly important papers locked up in Mississippi and Georgia. Could a court order open them to scrutiny?

[Larry Hancock]

The ones I mentioned are available for scrutiny, I have not looked at them personally so I'm only reporting hearsay on what is there but any lawyer or even legal aid can get access. We talked to a lawyer who was familiar with them and very familiar with Milteer himself. I know researchers have looked at them and was just asking if they were mentioned in the book; I will say that there are reportedly invoices and records in there of interest including motel receipts showing Milteer was several states away from Dallas on Nov. 22...traveling on the east coast. There legal status is one of ownership since he is dead the the HSCA acquired them and then failed to take them into physical possession.

[Ernie Lazar]

Paul, does Caufield give any notice that he has been through the Milteer papers now located in a Ga country courthouse? They were collected by the HSCA but never moved out of Georgia... there seems to be some important stuff in there including motel receipts for Nov 22....just curious as if he had reviewed that or talked to the lawyer that controls it?

Are you referring to the Brooks County Probate Court records? If so, Caufield does refer to them in his book

[Paul Brancato]

Interesting that motel receipts show Milteer somewhere else than Dealey Plaza. I'd like to know more about that from the author. Seems that Milteer might have been anxious to prove he wasn't there, or perhaps the FBI. What I would like to know is what does the evidence consist of? I presume it's the motel's own records.

[Larry Hancock]

Ernie, I don't know if that is what they are called or not, the lawyer told they were collected by the HSCA as evidence for their investigation but never removed from the country. As to Paul's question, what I was told was that they included original, dated motel receipts from that period. We were working on Milteer in regard to MLK at that point and never went back to it. I'll have to leave it to someone else to take this further, I was just asking if the book had explored them.

[Paul Trejo]

In any case, regarding Joseph Milteer, the new book by Jeffrey Caufield expresses a firm conviction that Joseph Milteer was at Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963 when JFK was killed.

Around that time, Milteer called Somersett from a pay telephone and said, "Hey, I'm in jackrabbit country now; and you won't be seeing Kennedy in Miami again!"

It wasn't just Willie Somersett who was convinced that Joseph Milteer was directly connected to the JFK Killers -- but FBI Agent Don Adams, who wrote a book shortly before he died, From an Office Building with a High-Powered Rifle (2012) to explain the anguish he felt his entire life because he was certain that he had the clues to the JFK murder -- and the FBI refused to listen.

Don Adams appears in many YouTube videos on this topic.

Still, Jeff Caufield doesn't rely only on the witness of FBI Agent Don Adams, or even on the witness of FBI informant Willie Somersett -- but delves into many other interviews, and draws upon several FOIA releases.

Still no smoking gun? IMHO, the FBI knew the truth about the JFK murder, and withheld it from FBI Agents like Adams and Swearingen who had parts of the truth.

The FBI's full intention was to hide and suppress all knowledge of LHO's accomplices and the True Conspiracy. Yet this wasn't because the FBI was part of the JFK Kill Plot (which question is left open by Jeff Caufield). It seems to me, rather, that all of the effort of the FBI to tamper with evidence -- including Bethesda evidence -- was to create the illusion of a "Lone Nut" who had no accomplices at all, for purposes of National Security, exactly as they said.

This means that with the final releases of the JFK Records Act on Thursday 26 October 2017 -- EXACTLY TWO YEARS FROM TODAY -- I expect to see the Full Truth about Joseph Milteer published from within FBI records.

IMHO, this material will also name the accomplices of Milteer, which will include Guy Banister and General Walker.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 26, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Just for balance I should probably note that I think Sommersett was reliable on some things, he certainly was on a Miami PD sting on a gun buy to kill MLK, but you have to keep in mind that he had been outed by none other than JB Stoner as an FBI source early on, well before 63. Stoner had cautioned those hanging with him about what to say and to give him only misleading information. In fact so much misleading info was passed to him (he continued to pass on everything he heard) - that ultimately the FBI dropped him as a credible source. That doesn't mean it isn't worth following what he was passing on but you have to weigh that against Stoners warning and the fact that Sommerset was given information that would not pan out upon investigation so as to discredit him as a credible source to the FBI. Anyone with a copy of AGOG can see how much Stu and I wrestled when to use his info and when it was dubious.